A variety of cardiovascular exercise devices have been developed which allow the user to perform walking, running and climbing exercises. These devices include treadmills, escalator-type devices, and moving ladders. The majority of the devices exercise predominately the legs. The most common device of this type is a treadmill, either powered or unpowered.
Another less common type is the moving stair or moving ladder device. This device also is predominately a leg exerciser providing very little upper body exercise. Devices which do provide upper body work such as bench press machines, generally do not provide good cardiovascular training results. Attempts to create good cardiovascular effects while using upper body exercisers also have produced a series of cross-country skiing simulators. These devices can provide a good balance in upper and lower body exercise while also providing good cardiovascular exercise. The main drawback is the relative complexity of these machines and the restricted capability to adjust the workload between upper and lower body muscles.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a means to produce cardiovascular training effects while exercising upper body muscles.
It is another object of the present invention to provide cardiovascular effects while minimizing impact shocks to the knees and legs.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide means for maintaining operator heart rate in a predetermined range.
Another object of the present invention is to provide the operator with an accurate readout of calories expended based on work output to the device.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a means of shifting workload between upper and lower body muscles as necessary for the desired training effect.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a moving ladder apparatus capable of operating at variable speeds.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a means of speed control for a moving ladder exercise apparatus.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a means of stopping the moving ladder immediately if the operator fails to remove his foot from the mechanism or otherwise discontinues his exercise.